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History and Future of Peace Corps Programming in Haiti

The Peace Corps/Haiti program focuses primarily on income generation and capacity building. Current projects are in the areas of small enterprise development, agriculture and environmental education, and rural health education.

In 1996, as the Peace Corps was reestablishing its presence in Haiti, improving access to financial services to increase incomes among the rural poor was recognized as an important step. The purpose of the small enterprise development project is thus to strengthen the institutional and managerial capacities of existing microfinance institutions in order to create sustainable small business opportunities for the rural and semiurban poor. The Peace Corps' microfinance project collaborates with nongovernmental and rural organizations that promote and support financial services that in turn create grass-roots income-generating opportunities. Volunteers work in rural areas and small urban centers to build the capacity of local committee leaders and partner organizations in microfinance activities. In some cases, Volunteers are part of NGO teams that provide direct, community-level technical support to microfinance institutions.

Most Haitians depend on agriculture for their existence. At the same time, land use and the need for charcoal have led to extensive deforestation of Haiti's hillsides. The purpose of the agroforestry and environmental education project is to improve the standard of living of rural populations by providing viable, sustainable income-generating opportunities with an environmental focus, as well as to improve the institutional and managerial capacities of local organizations, rural schools, and communities. For example, Volunteers work with rural communities to introduce or improve the cultivation of fruit trees as a source of income and as an environmental conservation measure. Volunteers also work with these communities on collective marketing of agricultural products, creation of new microenterprises, improvement of agricultural production, increasing access to and nderstanding of credit, and improvement of animal-stock sales.

Peace Corps/Haiti recently began a new project in rural health education that aims to raise health conditions by teaching communities how to fight chronic malnutrition; by stressing the importance of immunizations, sanitation, and maternal health; and by providing options for preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Volunteers work primarily with women and children, who are the groups most affected by poor health and who can make the biggest changes in the health of a family and community. Volunteers provide education and resources in basic hygiene, sanitation, children's and women's health care issues, HIV/AIDS prevention, vaccinations, and sex education to youth, young adults, and women of childbearing age.

Currently, the program is in a suspended state since June 2005 and will be revaluated in Feb 2006.